Keshav Malik

Born in 1924 in Miani (now the Punjab province of Pakistan), Keshav Malik was a renowned poet and art critic. He completed his education in Srinagar and served as personal assistant to the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, from 1947-48. Malik received the Italian and French Government scholarships for art history and studied Renaissance and French art at Florence and the Sorbonne during the 1950s. He also studied at Columbia University from 1954-58. He was an art critic for the Hindustan Times from 1961-72, and then moved on to work for The Times of India from 1977 onwards. Malik curated an exhibition of Indian art The Human Condition, which travelled to Bulgaria, Poland, Belgium and Yugoslavia from 1973-74.

Malik lectured widely on Indian art and poetry, including Europe and South America. He was appointed the first president of the Poetry Society of India in 1984. Some of his most well-known poetry publications are Between Nobodies and Stars (1959), Poems C (1971), Shapes in Peeling Plaster (1985). Apart from publishing 18 volumes of poetry, he also edited six anthologies of English translations of Indian poetry. He was also the editor of Sahitya Akademi’s bi-monthly journal in Indian Literature from 1972, till his retirement in 1984. In 1991, Keshav Malik was awarded the Padma Shri for his contribution to literature and in 2004, was bestowed with the honour of the Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi for lifetime contribution. He passed away in June 2014.

Critical Collective gratefully acknowledges the support of Mrs Usha Malik.

ESSAYS

Monuments and murals

by Keshav Malik

The relation between painting, sculpture and architecture is a pertinent one when thinks of the mural. All monuments belonging to ancient civilisations are examples of close collaboration between these arts. Yet it is difficult to think of the matter precisely because of the general character of the

A question of symbols

by Keshav Malik

The current spurt in symbolism and myth making should not, in a sense, cause much surprise; both realistic and abstract art approaches have reached their limits of exploration. Moreover one cannot do without symbols, whether old or new. Sometimes the artist’s desire is altogether incoherent; the artist

Printmaking, A flashback

by Keshav Malik

Since this exhibition is a landmark in the development of contemporary printmaking on the Indian scene it may be a good idea to indulge in a kind of flashback. Having watched the growth of the art movement for a few decades, I will take as my starting point the year 1960 and try to recapitulate, and

The Obsession with Indianness

by Keshav Malik

Let me say at once that the sub-continent stands out in sharp contrast to the world outside. The myriad Indian faces, excepting in the rarest cases, will betray themselves at a glance to even the alien of average intelligence, on any foreign shore. Granting this, and much more, regarding local physical

Rameshwar Broota

by Keshav Malik

There are people who get very upset when it is said that painting nowadays tends to be uniform, dull and internationally conformist instead of being personal, local, individual and exciting. They reply to such charges - if such a comment can be called a charge --- that since it is possible to distinguish

Reddy the Artist

by Keshav Malik

I do think, that, to go through the work of P.T. Reddy from his beginnings to now, is to become aware of the transformations of artistic sensibility in the human mind. Reddy's is virtually a case history. It would be fair to launch upon a discussion of his work with first trying to indicate a few

Affections of the Human Heart

by Keshav Malik

What was Prodosh Das Gupta like, as person? At the least he was unlike several other artists. A powerful intellect, a massive, overpowering personality, and yet shy. curious, susceptible, confiding. All his life he was sternly faithful both to the soil that gave him birth as well to art in a most

The Remaking of Indian Painting

by Keshav Malik

As we look back to India's pre-independence years prior to 1947 (and much before the works in this show were done), the horizon of art consisted of the generally myth or legend-laden compositions by artists.

Well, here was an art for the traditional family. In these pictures, as in the many mythological

Sailoz: The Inerasable Stamp

by Keshav Malik

The year, I believe, is 1944, and we, I mean Ramkumar (later to be a full-fledged painter) and myself are still studying. He is studying economics and I am bravely struggling with my intermediate. Brain-wave and both of us find ourselves enrolled in Ukil School of Art on Queensway (later Janpath). Our

In Step with the Tortoise

by Keshav Malik

Before I begin to ramble about Rameshwar Broota’s world one thing must be said at the very start, namely, that his art is not built upon a ‘great’ idea, but upon a minute, conscientious realization, upon the attainable, upon a craft. And this, if I may say so, is a compliment, not the reverse. It